Chosen Families: Art Exhibition — Belonging & Connection

Submission Deadline
* DEADLINE EXTENDED | Monday, June 8 at 11:59pm EST

Opening Reception| Thursday, July 9 from 6-8pm

About Chosen Families | Chosen Families is open to all New England artists 18+ and welcomes work that explores the many ways we define and build family within and beyond traditional structures. Artists are invited to approach the idea of chosen family from personal, cultural, or conceptual perspectives. Submissions may reflect relationships rooted in care, affinity, and shared experience, whether formed through friendship, community, identity, or circumstance.

These works may consider themes of belonging, support, resilience, and the spaces where connection is created and sustained.

All visual media will be considered, including 2D, 3D, and video. Artwork will be presented at Kathryn Schultz Gallery (25 Lowell Street).

Yorgos Efthymiadis is a visual artist and an independent curator from Greece who resides in Somerville, MA. He is a 2025 Foster Prize Winner (Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston) and a recipient of Collective Futures Fund 2025 Grant (The Warhol Foundation). Efthymiadis is a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow (2025, 2017), a St. Botolph Club Foundation Fellow (2017), and was represented by Gallery Kayafas until its closure in 2024.

Efthymiadis finds it very fulfilling to help fellow photographers and give back to the photographic community. He has served as a board member of Somerville Arts Council and Chair of the Visual Arts Fellowship Grants from 2017 to 2025, and has been a reviewer for the Len scratch Student Prize since 2023.

In 2015 he created a gallery in his own kitchen, titled The Curated Fridge. The idea behind this project is to celebrate fine art photography and connect photographers with established and influential curators, gallerists, publishers and artists from around the world through free, quarterly curated calls. During its 11 years of exhibitions, The Curated Fridge has featured more than 1500 artists in 45 shows juried by 50 guest curators.

To belong is to feel safe, to be seen, to surround yourself with people you can trust. A chosen family is an organic community of people that comes together to support each other, people from various backgrounds who share values, identities, experiences, or memories. These relationships shape and bind the family members, creating a sense of home through acceptance, emotional connection, mutual care, and resilience.

Every piece in an exhibition is like a member of a chosen family. Individually, a work of art is evocative and captivating in a unique way but when complemented by the surrounding art its impact and voice are amplified.

Through different styles and mediums, these vivid artworks, some from established artists with accolades, some by talented graduates or rising stars, spin an intricate and multifaceted tapestry of emotions.

Todd Danforth Watertown MA @toddjosephdanforth  Mary Oishi at 70 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, January 2026 Archival Inket Print 15″ x 20″ $1,500

Corey Jonze Boston MA @coreyjonze  Keep on Moving Upwards My Brother / Keep on Moving Forward My Brother Acrylic on canvas, diptych 48″ x 48″ $3,600

Jacob Keven Somerville MA @kevandcob  Pride No. 51 Secondhand textiles (natural and synthetic), polyester thread, mounted on a wooden frame 48″ x 12″ $700

Timothy Hyunsoo Lee Somerville MA @timmyhlee  gajok sajin (cometboy as a sitter for a family portrait) Treated Korean silk, gold leaf, acrylic, inkjet print on paper, iridescent watercolor, and image transfer on paper; cut and collaged onto canvas 48″ x 48″ $15,000

Submission Deadline
* DEADLINE EXTENDED | Monday, June 8 at 11: 59pm EST

Artist Notification |Friday, June 12– all accepted artists will be posted on this webpage.

Opening Reception| Thursday, July 9 from 6-8pm

Exhibit Dates | July 9 – August 7, 2026

Artwork Drop-off | Tuesday, June 30 and Wednesday, July 1, from 12 – 4pm at the Kathryn Schultz Gallery (Artwork cannot be shipped. Late deliveries will not be accepted.)

Artwork Pick-up | Tuesday, August 11 and Wednesday, August 12 from 12 – 4pm at the Kathryn Schultz Gallery (Late pick-ups will incur a $15 per-week fee.All…